Dive Brief:
- The Edison Electric Institute (EEI), the trade association for the investor-owned utility industry, has launched "We Stand For Energy," a new social media-driven campaign to help raise awareness for the electricity service that utilities provide.
- The campaign features a blog, chat forum, and Twitter presence, as well as an interactive map of the country showing how much energy is coming from different resources and how many people work in the industry in each state.
Dive Insight:
Investor-owned utilities represented by EEI are projected to spend $90 billion annually on grid modernization, cleaner energy resources, energy efficiency and more. But they will need regulatory approval to do so -- and this campaign is intended to help. Because interest rates have remained low and the U.S. is still trying to pull its way out of the recession, state regulators are not particularly keen to pass the cost of investment on to customers. This makes it harder for utilities to get approval to invest in the grid.
By encouraging dialogue through the "We Stand For Energy" portal, investor-owned utilities hope to make the case for investment more transparent to customers and regulators. The portal is a "natural progression" for the industry, said Brian Wolff, EEI's executive vice president of public policy and external affairs.
"They just want to put themselves in a positive light in the eyes of consumers," said Tülin Erdem, a NYU business professor. "The idea is to remind the consumer or educating about this industry's positive spillover effects on the society, like job creation, clean energy, etc."
In the event of investments that "may result in even higher electricity charges," it makes sense to give customers warning and an opportunity to speak out and as questions before the changes take place, Erdem said. "They don't want a backlash from the consumers so they want to prepare the ground for that."